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Old 17-12-2018, 03:55 PM   #483
roKWiz
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Default Re: The Camping Thread

Quote:
Originally Posted by BENT_8 View Post
Sounds good.

From what i've been told, many of the lesser known branded fridges run superceeded Engel or Waeco hardware, so if thats whats in yours it would be fair to say its tried and proven albeit older technology.

It would be something like the older CF series from Waeco.
Maybe not so bad for part time camping but.....a word of warning about cheap (and even expensive) frigs is look for a CE approval stamp on them near the specs plate. I was stupid enough to buy not one but two upright Engel frigs (back when I was a motorhome greenhorn) which do NOT have that approval.
CE is an approval guaranty that said item will not cause electrical interference with other devices.

So what you may say, well I later found these and ones that are not CE approved can interfere with other 12V (and even some 240v appliances) some when you want to use radio, laptop or TV for example, when the frig kicks in you have a buzzing background sound and display which is near impossible to stop and can damage sensitive electronic components. Not to mention drive you nuts.
The second Engel I had was on board a yacht and caused no end of trouble using a depth sounder and marine radio. I even had complaints from boats either side on a marina where we lived and had to make significant modifications to the electrical sheathing on the back of the frig using faraday wire loops along its length.
I later found Engel and some other frigs were banned for marine use in Europe as the interference was dangerous to navigation and coms equipment
To this day a lot of Engel stuff does not have the CE mark, unlike Waeco (being EU made) or even Dometic.

On the good quality VS cheapo camping frigs it will depend on power usage... ie cheapo might use upto 7amp per hour (cycling 15hrs out of 24) where as a quality one might use 3amps ph (cycling say for 2 minutes every 20 mins) which is a big deal to your battery storage capabilities.
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Last edited by roKWiz; 17-12-2018 at 04:14 PM.
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